Image And Likeness

Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness."
Genesis 1:26

A human being is not said to have or to bear the image of God, such as God's immaterial essence, but each is said to be in his or her entirety be the image of God.

...

"In the image of God" implies that adam (male and female) is theomorphic (i.e., having the form of God), but since God is spirit, not flesh and blood, "in the image of God" entails that the human species in his or her entire being faithfully and adequately represents God. To emphasize the distance and difference between God and mortals, "according to his likeness" is added.

We must employ two metaphorical mirrors to understand this imaging of God. On the one hand, when we look at ourselves in a mirror, we see the image of God. Anthony Hoekema puts it this way: "Man[kind] as ... created was to mirror God and to represent God." On the other hand, since we are only God's likeness and not identical to him, we need to validate our analogies between ourselves and God by considering his reflection in Scripture to see to what extent the images comport with one another...

First, the human physical form reflects God. "Does he who implanted the ear not hear? Does he who formed the eye not see?" (Ps. 94:9). When we look into a mirror, we see a certain reflection of God: eyes to see, ears to hear, a mouth to communicate. The biblical mirror of God validates this inference by such anthropomorphisms (i.e., having the form of adam) as "the eyes of God" and "the ears of God." Yet God is spirit, not corporeal, and so in his substance differs from us. In sum, our human structure faithfully and adequately shows that God, though spirit, sees the needy and hears the cry of the suffering.

...

"Likeness" distinguishes the image from its Creator or begetter (cf. Gen. 5:3), underscores the notion that the image is only a faithful and adequate representation of God, and safeguards against any pagan notion that equates the image as deity and worthy of worship. In short, contrary to New Age Thinking, human beings are not gods and are not to be confounded with God in heaven. "Likeness"defines and limits the meaning of [image] (Paul Humbert, James Barr), and one must look into the mirror of Scripture to determine those boundaries.

--Bruce Waltke, An Old Testament Theology: An Exegetical, Canonical, and Thematic Approach, p.215-219